The winner of the Christmas Pawtraits competition has been chosen by the owners of The Pet Emporium in Watford.

Katie Dickinson, 29, and Yasmin Tarr, 26, took over The Pet Emporium in St Albans Road, Watford, two years ago and have seen a varied collection of dressed up animals.

During the festive period the Observer ran a competition to find the best dressed pet in south west Herts.

Miss Dickinson said: “Most pets are treated like children and everybody loves dressing them up.

“We find the bigger dogs hate dressing up but the smaller dogs like as much attention as they can get.

“We have a regular customer who comes into the shop with a pet ferret called Todd. Whenever he can Todd is dressed up. He was dressed up as Batman with wings and everything for Halloween.”

The shop caters mainly for cats and dogs as well as guinea pigs and ferrets.

Miss Tarr said: “We also specialise in grooming rescue pets. We do not use crates or cages and do everything by hand. We have a calming atmosphere in our store as well.

“Because we are very close to Watford Junction we get a lot of customers from all over. Customers come from as far as Harrow and Bushey.”

The Pet Emporium is run by Miss Dickinson and Miss Tarr and they have two employees and all of them are big animal lovers.

Miss Dickinson said: “We all dress our own pets as well. Everybody loves doing it.”

Although the competition was open to all pets from horses to hamsters entries were mainly cats and dogs with the exception of a tortoise.

After more than 80 entries a winner has been decided and will be revealed in this week’s edition of the Observer. The winner will receive a hamper and a grooming session at The Pet Emporium.